Proper protection from damage to the skin by the sun has been receiving increasing attention over the years. It is now known and understood that it does not require a significant amount of visible sun to bring about damage to the skin. People in the northern countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland have also received significant skin damage even though the temperatures are not overtly high and there is significant cloud cover. Such damage from acute or continuous exposure of the skin to solar radiation can result in sunburn, that is the cutaneous inflammation of the skin resulting in redness, pain or tenderness and in extreme cases, blistering and peeling. Additionally premature aging due to changes in the collagen and elastic fibers can occur. Perhaps the most disturbing effect of exposure to the sun can be the growth of skin cancer. Approximately 600,000 new cases of skin cancer are reported each year in the United States alone.
Consumers generally recognize the health benefits from a sun protecting agent. They generally find it inconvenient and cosmetically unpleasant to apply the present sunscreen products which are primarily "leave-on" products. The most common sunscreen products in the market place are oily compositions containing an organic molecule that absorbs the daylight in the UV spectrum. This UV filter is sometimes incorporated in a water in oil emulsion and the product generally appears as a white cream or lotion. Recently new sun protection products are based on the dispersion of sunlight by the high reflectability of micronized particles of metal oxides, for example, titanium dioxide.
It has now been discovered that significant sun protection, i.e. that approaching a level or even equal to or sometimes greater than a sun protection factor (SPF) of two can be achieved by utilizing a skin cleansing composition with an oily component which also contains a hydrophobic sun protection agent. This "2 in 1" composition can be used on a daily basis to cleanse the skin and while cleansing the skin, deposits the sun protecting agent on the skin in significant quantities. As aforestated, the quantities are such that they are essentially equivalent to the deposition of sun protection agents achieved with specific sun protecting compositions having a sun protection factor (SPF) of two according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration monograph.